I Don't Get It: Helping Students Understand What They Read

Literacy continues to be a hot topic for educators and parents. I Don't Get It! Helping Students Understand What They Read is a practical, easy-to-use resource for classroom teachers and literacy coaches. Parents will also find the information helpful as they assist their children with homework and support for reading comprehension. This book will help to improve student literacy by offering a variety of strategies designed to help students think as they read printed text. All have been carefully considered for ease of use, utility in terms of differentiation, and simplicity of format. The author evaluates each strategy according to Bloom's Taxonomy and provides suggestions for adaptation through the use of technology. Providing practical, effective and research-based strategies designed to help students read, understand, and remember challenging material, the book can be read cover to cover, "on the run," or as a resource in response to a specific, expressed need by teaching staff.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Preface Part 2 Acknowledgements Part 3 About This Book Chapter 4 Vocabulary Strategies Chapter 5 Comprehension Strategies Chapter 6 Helping Students Help Themselves Chapter 7 References

About the Author :
Judy Tilton Brunner serves as clinical faculty at Missouri State University in the Department of Reading, Foundations, and Technology. She is a regular presenter at national and state conferences on the topics of reading, differentiated instruction, classroom management, school safety, and the prevention of bullying behaviors.

Review :
This book is a wonderful resource for busy students and teachers! It has practical strategies for middle school and high school students to understand informational text. Teachers will love the practical format and will find many tools that they can use with their students. The study skills section is especially helpful in giving students the right strategies to become self-reliant and prepared for a set of life skills that will successfully carry them to college and beyond. This down-to-earth approach presents “real life” examples of teaching vocabulary, comprehension and study skills at the secondary level with a hope for assisting teachers. The Vocabulary and Comprehension chapters are good resources of strategies for teaching these skills. They are backed up by research, defined by technique, and identified via Bloom. These can be very useful to the beginning teacher or teacher struggling to think of new ways to plan lessons. I see this as a type of “dictionary” or “handbook” for strategies. Some might say that getting students excited about reading is somewhat of an oxymoron; however, unless educators can do so, they will continue to miss the mark in helping students be successful. Without effective literacy strategies, students will continue to struggle, and teachers will continue to be frustrated by the lack of success of their students as well as the disciplinary incidents that result when students cannot read. Judy Brunner has spent her life in education and has a proven track record as a teacher, administrator and professional development presenter. She has seen what does, and does not, work in the classroom from her own perspective as a teacher and at various levels as she supervised teachers. She has a passion for literacy at upper grade levels and understands the difficulty of teaching 16 year olds basic reading. I Don't Get It!: Helping Students to Understand What They Read is full of strategies that teachers can choose as appropriate for individual students and for students at different levels of development. Ideally, strategies included can also be utilized by all grade levels and content areas to help students improve their reading comprehension. Comprehending basic reading strategies is a special challenge for Some might say that "getting students excited about reading" is somewhat of an oxymoron; however, unless educators can do so, they will continue to miss the mark in helping students be successful. Without effective literacy strategies, students will continue to struggle, and teachers will continue to be frustrated by the lack of success of their students as well as the disciplinary incidents that result when students cannot read. Judy Brunner has spent her life in education and has a proven track record as a teacher, administrator and professional development presenter. She has seen what does, and does not, work in the classroom from her own perspective as a teacher and at various levels as she supervised teachers. She has a passion for literacy at upper grade levels and understands the difficulty of teaching 16 year olds basic reading. I Don't Get It!: Helping Students to Understand What They Read is full of strategies that teachers can choose as appropriate for individual students and for students at different levels of development. Ideally, strategies included can also be utilized by all grade levels and content areas to help students improve their reading comprehension. Comprehending basic reading strategies is a special challenge for older students and tips provided should help students learn how to help themselves learn.